


These Words Are My Own

by dirtytrix



Series: Let's be soul mates [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: A little bit of blood, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Barely mention it really, F/M, I don't know if this is graphic violence but it is certainly GRAPHIC IN THE HEART, Original Character Death(s), Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Swearing, some violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-07
Updated: 2015-06-07
Packaged: 2018-04-03 02:30:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4083262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirtytrix/pseuds/dirtytrix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Soulmate AU where everyone has the last words their soul mate will ever say to them printed on their wrist. Inspired by a tumblr prompt where I wrote a tag fic which in turn became the following 13k of angst and heartbreak. </p><p>I make no apologies. But it's also kind of sweet maybe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	These Words Are My Own

**Author's Note:**

> Let's go in with our eyes wide open shall we? Major character death, I won't say who but yeah, one half of my world. Please enjoy if you are so inclined to enjoy this level of pain.
> 
> Come and cry with me on tumblr: ringmybellamy

_**\--Clarke--** _

Clarke had grown up in a world where the black words imprinted on her wrist were made out to be the stuff of fairytales. She didn’t know how it had been in Factory station, Argo or anywhere else for that matter, but in Go Sci the last words of your soul mate were as magical and dream like as stories of the ground. One of the bedtime stories parents would tell their children, and Clarke’s favorite when her father would tell it with voices and large hand motions, was the story of the prince and princess of a mythical land. Their matching words and how they find each other against all odds, before saying the phrase to each other with reverence on their dying day. Somehow between the stories and the way her parents looked at each other as they talked about it, the morbid reality of having her soul mates last words tattooed on her wrist was glazed over and replaced with a much grander childhood fantasy.

She realized, much too late in life, that not everyone was as blessed. As her observation skills honed along with her teenage hormones she would increasingly see the hurt that flashed across Wells’ face whenever someone asked him what his words were. Any mention of the wrist that she knew was blank for him would only make her rub her own comfortingly, even while she jumped in to save him from whatever stranger was too nosy for their own good. She had a soul mate and some people didn’t. She was lucky.

Although with her words being what they were and her belief in having a soul mate being what it was, life was still hard. “May we meet again” was so ordinary that it wasn’t uncommon to hear it almost daily. The first time someone had said it directly to her as a child she’d cried and begged them to say something, anything else. The fact that the person was a teacher and she was six was neither here nor there. She just hadn’t been able to stand the thought of what might happen next. It got better over the years; she learned to hide her wince when people said it as a farewell. Anyone who knew her well enough knew not to say it at all. Wells made a joke of it when they were 15 and she figured out that he liked her differently than she liked him. He would say it every time he left until she finally stopped him and objected motioning between them, “your wrist is blank and if you think this is going to end with me staying quiet then you don’t know me well enough to be my soul mate”. They’d laughed and it was easier between them after that, the tension she hadn’t realized was there, disappearing along with his running gag. 

She _tries_ to block out the day her father was floated but there’s just too much time to think about it in the skybox. Too many endless days with nothing but four walls and only his watch to know when night starts. On the Ark she thought she’d never stop seeing his face that last time, still trying to comfort her till the end. And trying to comfort her mother of course, whose arm was wrapped around Clarke even though she was too caught up in her own grief. Clarke remembers her trying to reach out and her mouth about to open but he shakes his head, taps his wrist gently and she nods, understanding.

Eventually that will be the moment that finally convinces her of what she knew all along, that her mother betrayed her father.

When she’s in the middle of trying to keep 100 teenagers alive, it hits her all at once and she feels like an idiot. Suddenly the “I’m sorry” on his wrist and the “Abby, I forgive you” on hers are more clear in her mind anything else, just when she doesn’t have time for them. She’s not sure she’ll ever be able to apologize to Wells enough for hating him, or thank him enough for forgiving her.

When he turns up dead the next day she realizes how true that is. 

It doesn’t help when she’s practically forced to sit down and talk to her mother and the defense she goes with is as weak as, “I didn’t think they would float him.” This from the woman who was still part of a system that floated men when they stole extra rations for hungry children. Clarke understood the privilege she’d been ridiculed about then, and she hated her mother more than she ever imagined for expecting their family to benefit from it.

After Abby follows her to the ground they’re having a rare meal together, that she’d been accosted into having since she “had to eat anyway.” It’s mostly in silence when Clarke remembers the question that nagged at her since finding out, “How did you do it? How did you live with yourself knowing that in the end Da- he would need to forgive you?”

For her merit Abby doesn’t flinch and Clarke wonders if she’s been expecting this question, or something like it, for years.

“I had no idea what it would mean in the end, for all we knew he could have been forgiving me for eating his ration that day,” she half lets out a laugh but it’s strangled and awkward. “But I knew it was your father. I loved him and- and our words were two parts of a whole. He always made it easy, promised me when we got married that whatever it was he’d always forgive me, but I just never forgave myself. That’s why I was glad for you.”

Clarke chokes a little, so it’s spluttered when she manages to ask, “Glad for me?”

“Your words are so peaceful, no lifetime of guilt involved, and that always made me happy. When you were a little girl I liked to imagine that you’d be old and grey when you’d finally hear them properly.”

That had been as much as Clarke could stand of the topic. She had a mountain to take on and friends to save and she’s didn’t feel the need to let her mother beg forgiveness directly or indirectly. She’d nodded just to end the conversation.

It’s two weeks later when she kills Finn. The boy she had thought might be the one until his girlfriend had showed up. A girlfriend with words on her arm that were too sarcastic and intelligent to have come from Finn’s mouth. Not that Clarke ever told him that. At first she was being stubborn because she didn’t owe him a damn thing, and then there wasn’t time to say it anymore. Then it was about protecting Finn until he couldn’t be protected from himself.

A week later she’s sitting outside of Lexa’s tent surrounded by an army she earned her alliance with by spilling his blood when she remembers. “Thanks Princess.” She doesn’t mean to but she laughs, not for his death but for knowing. She’s already so tired even though the war is only just beginning and it’s a hazy relief that she didn’t just kill her soul mate, even more so knowing that she hadn’t become her mother. 

Lexa is, for lack of a better word, harsh. Everything about her is harsh, the way she commands her army, her choices and her voice, even the angles of her face. It’s not necessarily a bad thing that is until Clarke starts to feel like her plaything rather than her equal. She doesn’t label it with the word manipulation until she’s in the woods after everything, alone, with time enough to think. Because she’d had no time to consider her own feelings at war and there certainly wasn't time while Lexa traded Clarke’s people for her own.

Harsh.

She starts to scratch at her wrist after she’s been in the woods for nine days because that’s when she remembers Lexa’s last words to her. The same words branded on her skin and feeling more irritated by the minute. It’s nothing at first, an absent scratch, but a week and a half later and her wrist is nearly raw. The words are still clear against her skin though. As if she could scratch down to the bone and they’d still be there, pristine and dark as ever, taunting her with their meaning.

Never had she felt like this, or imagined that she could, like she doesn’t want the soul mate that the universe was offering her. She always assumed, naively and childishly, that she’d be blindingly in love with her soul mate like the princess in her favorite story. Even if her life had taught her not to believe bold, romantic notions like that she’d still had a glimmer of hope, because soul mates are just _different_ right?

She wonders if there’s a return policy on the whole thing, if there are people walking around living their lives after rejecting their soul mate or loving other people even after their ‘one’ has died. Finally she has to consider that if Lexa really is her soul mate then one of them will probably die very soon, and the thought doesn’t bother her half as much as she’d assumed it would.

That’s why there’s no way Lexa could possibly be her soul mate.

Clarke, as she often is, ends up being proven right. Another week in the forest, more scratching the skin that doesn’t feel the sting of her nails anymore, and she stumbles upon them. She’s hunting in the woods, chasing down a small squirrel like animal, when it runs through the trees into the clearing ahead. Without thinking she follows what she intends to be her next meal, while her stomach growls encouragingly, but instead she finds herself 20 feet away from a small group of grounders who break apart only slightly to reveal Lexa in the middle, a fierce knot in her brow.

If she’s honest she expects more fireworks. As far as Lexa knows she left Clarke in front of a mountain with no way of rescuing her friends. Instead of the questions she’s waiting for what she actually gets is a glare. It’s not cold but it is, worryingly, silent. Maybe this is it? One of her guard will shoot her in the chest with their frighteningly perfect aim and Clarke will die knowing once and for all. After minutes of the stand off Lexa’s lip finally quirks enough that she can see it from a distance. She bows her head briefly, a respectful “Clarke” springing from her before she leaves motioning for her guard to follow. It’s loud enough to hear and altogether enough to stop the worry that has been plaguing her for weeks.

Clarke recognizes that the smile that blooms on her face, probably the brightest one in a long time, is again relief but different than with Finn. Then Clarke had been relieved she hadn’t killed her soul mate, now she is relieved that she still doesn’t know who her soul mate is.

She doesn’t spend all of her time in the woods thinking about her soul mate but when her fate is so seemingly intertwined with four small words on her skin it does spring to mind on occasion. She reflects on people who she’s considered it might be in the past and wonders about the potential for who it still could be. It’s a welcome distraction and almost, dare she say it, fun. It makes her feels immature and light to lean her back against the sturdy bark of a tree, look up at the sky and wonder if there’s any possibility that she hasn’t met her soul mate yet, or worse, could it be Jasper?

It’s nothing more than a moment of frivolity (or madness in the case of Jasper) that she regrets and scolds herself for before she’s even finished thinking it. She doesn’t deserve it, not smiles, soul mates or salvation. Maybe she deserved Lexa or Finn. Maybe she deserved the suffering that would have accompanied being tied to either one of them for all time. In the devastation of taking the mountain she’s let herself stop having nightmares about his blood on her hands and since she’s seen the commander she’s stopped scratching her own skin off. She’s fairly sure she doesn’t deserve to be let off of either so easily.

Mostly in the woods, besides her small occasional respite, she spends her time surviving. Skills learnt from the grounders, and from Bellamy, keep her alive long enough to repent daily. She also finds her own knowledge of the ground surprises her, like there’s a map in her head that she learned without realizing. That’s how she ends up at the dropship again. She doesn’t go into the actual camp where 300 charred grounders are waiting to remind her of the atrocities she caused long before the mountain. Instead she goes and sits with Wells. Crossed legged at the bottom of a grave marked for him while she tells him everything she can think of. He listens of course, not that he has a choice, and it almost reminds her of the Ark where he would listen to her for hours while she tried to find the right description for what trees _might_ smell like. If she’s absolutely, selfishly honest she’s never missed him more. He would have been honest with her about her decisions, devastatingly so, and back when she let him he was the support she always needed, without making her feel any weaker for needing it. She lost that long before she came to the ground and only got it back fleetingly. Now that she’s alone in the woods with ugly memories bouncing around the inside her head all she wants is a game of chess and some sound advice from her best friend.

Down here she may be occasionally right but rarely does she get what she wants. After a day with Wells, and after picking fresh flowers to leave by his side, she leaves and doesn’t go back. It’s just another massacre she needs to add to the growing list of ‘things Clarke Griffin needs forgiveness for. 

This is how her life goes until she loses count of the days. Surviving, repenting and making sure to remind herself of every mistake she’s ever made. By the weather she’s sure she’s been gone for at least all of spring because all too quickly it’s warm. Warm enough that she doesn’t wear her extra layers in the daytime, only using her jacket at night. Eventually she’s walking around with a pack spilling over with her winter coat as if it’s as distant a memory as the cold. The only real effect of her wardrobe change is the new, surprising glances of those damn words on her wrist.

It’s not as if she didn’t know it was there, some days they’re the last part that really feels like her anymore. The one last tie she has to something bigger and arguably much better than herself. If she can hold on to those words maybe she can still have it, forgiveness and peace and most importantly love. Even on the days when that _feels_ impossible she doesn’t notice that she traces the words over and over, like a silent reminder that maybe penance is not as impossible as it seems.

May we meet again.

One day her soul mate will say these words to her and she never will see them again. More death. But as her father always said, “it’s not the sadness of the goodbye it’s the happiness that it happened”.

That night she thinks of Wells and his empty wrist and how much she hated him up till hours before he died. He never had his happiness though he might have deserved it more than anyone.

She doesn’t know what changes when the sun wakes her up that particular day. It’s warm but that’s not unlike it had been the last few weeks. It’s bright but she’d chosen to sleep under the gap in the trees knowing it would be an effective wake up call. If anyone dares to ask her she won’t be able to tell them exactly what changed her mind. Just that something did.

She breathes in and out slowly. It’s deep and relaxing and her shoulders slump away so much tension it feels unnatural. She realizes two things immediately. Firstly she’s not doused in the buckets of sweat she normally rouses in, which can only mean that the nightmares have either taken an uncharacteristic night off or she’s mastered the art of not having them every single time she closes her eyes. Secondly there’s a nagging ache in her chest that’s been growing for days but this morning she’s finally able to identify what it is and what she wants. 

She wants to go home.

It’s not a decision she takes lightly. She doesn’t hitch up her pack and stroll back to Camp Jaha with a smile on her face and a song in her heart. She paces for a while, considering everything including the possibility that maybe they don’t want her back. They never came looking for her, although she knows Bellamy wouldn’t have let them even if they’d tried, but it’s enough of a deep-rooted fear to waste a few hours. It’s the first time she’s seriously thought about going back and now that she has she’s more terrified of the reactions than anything else. She left because she couldn’t look at her people everyday knowing what she’d done to get them home, now she has to wonder if they won’t be able to look at her because of what she did.

Her overwhelming need to go home eventually trumps her indecision. She had decided to leave just as quickly so it stands to reason that her return should be just as spontaneous.

The trek back is easy enough, she knows the way having avoided it so often over the last-- months. It has to be months now. She swallows the fear again and pushes it down as she cautiously exits the safety for the forest. The trees part just as wide as she remembers, into almost flat terrain, and she can already hear the commotion in the camp at the unknown person who stumbled out of the woods and is calmly wandering towards their gates. The closer she gets the louder it gets until there’s a very clear voice above the rest, “I THINK IT’S HER.”

The gates swing open and the guards apparently recognize her immediately, dropping their guns and moving aside. If the moment didn’t feel so monumental she’d grin at them for knowing it's her even though she’s as dirty and broken as a person could be. She’s allowed to walk into camp as normal, which she’s grateful for, and her legs automatically carry her towards the communal center of camp, the eyes are on her constantly. Some are curious and she can appreciate that reaction, she would be too of someone who left for months only to reappear out of the blue. Some seem to be accusing but thankfully those are far less in numbers, and then there’s the eyes of her real people. The remains of the 100 scattered throughout camp. When she steals a glance at them their eyes are different and entirely more difficult to read. Shock? Relief? Or is that sadness?

Finally people start moving closer. The more familiar faces, Harper, Monty and the rest start accepting that maybe she is actually here and they offer her wary but welcoming greetings. Raven appears without any sound to warn of her approach and while Clarke isn’t sure what to expect she would never have guessed on the tight hug she receives. It’s explained moment later with a whispered, “I’m just so fucking glad you’re alive” as she pulls away.

Clarke smiles back at her hoping her expression is enough to say, “You too.”

She sees her mother before she arrives; she’s running with Kane on her heels and for the second time someone crashes into her with a hug. It’s not as terrifying as she thought hugging her mother might be. This isn’t the hug she had _needed_ in the mountain but a genuine display of affection and it dawns on her that maybe she managed to truly forgive her mother while she was trying to forgive herself.

Clarke doesn’t mean to be ungrateful, especially to those who are crowding her now, asking questions and trying to get her attention, but she looks over their heads cautiously. She hadn’t exactly played this return out in her head like a schoolgirl might but she’s hoped, expected maybe, to see him. That black hair and tan skin and those eyes that had broken her heart, and almost changed her mind, at the gates all that time ago. 

When she first left she was comfortable talking to herself as if she wasn’t alone but eventually the silence was comforting, only the sounds of the forest and animals to break her from her thoughts. So it’s no surprise how much her throat protests at even the idea of speaking. Regardless she opens her mouth anyway but the first syllables are so hoarse and croaky that she has to cough almost dramatically before trying again, the people around her seem to take this to mean that she has something important to say.

“Where’s Bellamy?”

Her words are innocent enough. It’s a simple question and she’s expecting some equally simple answer like, ‘hunting’ or ‘on patrol.’ Instead it’s an instant change in mood. Every face around her breaks in different and unexpected ways. Kane’s brow creases heavily with burden, his eyes lowered and his mouth downturned. Raven’s face goes straight to being devoid of emotion and despite the comforting hand Wick places on her shoulder she shakes her head stubbornly to keep whatever she’s struggling with at bay. If Clarke didn’t know by then her mothers face clumsily hammers the point home. Sadness sweeps over Abby’s face aging her in years as she shakes her head, the sullen head shake that everyone inherently understood.

“Clarke,” she starts with hands reaching out for her.

“No.” It’s the clearest, loudest and most determined thing she’s said in months despite the frown on her face and the quiver on her lip.

“Clarke there was an accident,” Abby’s hand finds her shoulder now, her other hand apparently waving at everyone to step back.

Everything goes quiet, either that or the ringing in her ears, the pounding of her own heartbeat, renders her momentarily deaf. He can’t be, can he? It’s… He was supposed to be here. Waiting for her with complaints about how the council was trying to run things and a comforting promise that they’d fix everything together. It was their rule, their unspoken agreement.

Except, she swallows thickly like she can taste the words again as the memories come flooding back to her, it was spoken, “May we meet again.”  
  
Nausea rolls over her in waves and her hands start to shake, maybe her whole body does but she doesn’t recognize it as strongly as in her hands, probably because it’s accompanied by a sting at her wrist. She knows that it’s completely impossible that the words physically hurt. She knows there’s no way that the burn, like a ring of fire over her skin, is real.

And yet she’s on her knees, she’s not sure when that happened, and she’s clutching her wrist like she can hide it from sight and it’ll all go away. Like it might bring him back. He’d said those words to her like a lifeline and a prayer, and most importantly like a promise. He’d fucking promised. 

He promised her that they’d meet again.

Somewhere, what feels like miles away, she hears Abby gasp although she’s not sure why, unless Bellamy has suddenly sauntered up to the gates and it’s all been a nightmare more horrible than any of the other ones she’s had recently.

It’s not a nightmare.

She’s not sure when it happens but she’s scooped up and she hasn’t got the fight in her to stop it. At this point she’s surprised that she has the fight in her to even breathe. As far back as she can remember she’d been dreaming of the ground and then she finally got here only to fight for her life on a planet constantly trying to swallow her whole, battling for the peace and quiet she had revered on the Ark. 

Now the ground has disappeared from under her and the sky isn’t there to catch her either because Bellamy Blake was-- is her soul mate but she’ll never get to see his shit eating grin or the spark of gold in his eyes as they flash at her again. Or his voice, that low and gravely tone that he used to command a crowd and often her. She’ll never hear that again, not even exasperated with her when she refuses to listen to him. And she’ll never feel his arms wrap around her again, thick hands that exuded heat as they spread over her back, making her feel safe and comfortable like nothing else ever has.

It should frighten her, how quickly Bellamy spreads through every vein in her body until he’s consuming her with his absence. How instantly she realizes what they were, or could have been. It _should_ frighten her but it doesn’t. Somehow she just knows he’s always been there, the feelings lingering just below the surface and only now allowed to be felt by her acceptance that he was it for her.

She may have made the trip back to Camp Jaha but she realizes she won’t ever get to come home.

 

_**\--Abby--** _

Abby has had her heartbroken exactly three times in her life. The first was her own doing as she stood in Jaha’s office and told him about her husbands plan. She was betraying him and their family, it killed her, but she honestly thought she was doing the best she could, saving her people and stopping civil war aboard their rickety space station that could barely hold itself to the sky. 

The second was days later as Jake pushed a wedding ring into her hand and a watch into Clarkes. And with his last moment as she let’s out a sobbed “I’m sorry,” he whispers into her hair “Abby, I forgive you.” She can feel the ghost of his smile as he says it and she knows why. Because of the words on her wrist that he’s teased her about for years, with a shake of his head at unmade beds or shushing her loudly when she talks too much, always followed by the fabled “Abby, I forgive you.” 

She wants to hate him for it this time because he’s got a watery smile on his face and he shouldn’t. She wants to scold him and tell him to take it seriously because Jake, _this is it_.

She has time for none of that. Instead she watches through blurred vision as he walks over to the air lock after Jaha’s “it’s time.” She can actually feel her heart ripping itself apart in contrast to the doors closing between them and she opens her mouth out of instinct, habit, she just needs to say something. That she loves him maybe. He smiles again, wider, and taps his wrist forcing her to hold her words between her teeth and her lower lip, which she’s worrying painfully. She has an arm around Clarke, who she doesn’t really want to see this but she can’t send her away. He’s her father as much as he’s her husband. Soul mate. As much as he’s her soul mate.

It’s confirmed, not that she needed it to be, seconds later when the button is pressed and they’ve both kept the promises their wrists made for them years ago. 

She’s not sure she’ll ever forget the last thing on his face being the shock as the air is sucked out of the room a nanosecond before he is. The vast darkness of space consumes him in seconds and replaces where he stood with stars. Abby’s eyes don’t leave the spot where Jake Griffin once existed. 6 feet and 3 inches. 220 pounds. Gone in the blink of an eye. Not that she blinked while he was torn from her.

That’s the second, and she would have guessed, the worst time that her heart was broken.

And then she came to Earth. 

Earth was hard from the second she stepped foot on it. It was hard beneath her feet and it was hard of character. She feels like she arrived in the middle of a much larger story where her daughter was somehow in the lead, her teenage daughter.

Maybe that’s why she still thinks can’t be blamed for seeing these kids as kids. They had no idea what they were in for when the Ark fell, no idea of the war they inadvertently joined, no idea of the things their children had done just to survive another day.

That’s not to say she found all their actions excusable. 

That’s probably why she can’t hide her dislike of Bellamy Blake. Bellamy is already on thin ice having barely scraped a pardon from the chancellor for _shooting the chancellor_. But he doesn’t let up with the attitude when the Ark arrives; he’s arrogant and impatient. No respect for the systems already in place and he talks to them all like they’re the children. He’s all short and simple sentences as if they won’t understand, and sharp tones that come across as orders no matter what he’s saying. His influence on Clarke is equally disturbing. When she’s around him she carries a gun like it’s an extension of her and she’s defiant, completely unwilling to listen to reason. Abby knows her daughter and she knows this new part or her just had to be Bellamy Blake’s doing.

She recognizes his skills as a leader, albeit begrudgingly. Her daughter assures her that he’s the reason any of them at all are still alive at all, herself included. When Abby tries to protest she describes nearly falling into a grounder trap on her second day here, only Bellamy close enough to save her. Abby shivers at the thought that she might owe Bellamy her life.

Because Clarke is all she has left. Clarke may hate her but Abby loves unconditionally and she hopes eventually that will win out everything else.

When TonDC happens she can feel the ‘unconditional’ clause of her love stretching. It never breaks or waivers but her chest is tight when she looks into Clarke’s eyes and see’s the decision she’s made. The decision that has killed hundreds and injured more, worst of all is when it’s blindingly obvious that it’s not the first time her daughter has made these types of decisions. Abby realizes that it’s not Clarke’s decisions that will haunt her but rather that she sent her daughter to the ground to make them at all. 

Mount Weather is so much worse than anything she could have imagined and she’ll eventually remember that they tried to send these kids there on their first day. It’s like every nightmare at once, it’s chained in a room of her people, and it’s watching children and friends being tortured. It’s the drill as it enters her side without preamble until she can no longer think, beyond being so sure that she’s going to pass out from the pain and eventually give up fighting.

She barely registers Kane screaming in the background for her life because all she thinks of in that moment, as her eyes close and she’s sure she’s going to die, is Jake and the smile on his face the day they brought Clarke home from the med bay. She thinks of him throughout their marriage, growing into the wisdom he’d always carried beyond his years. There’s a sweeping peace as she exhales because maybe every fairy tale is true and maybe she’ll see her soul mate again soon. 

She’s was ready to see Jake again but when she opens her eyes and realizes the drill is gone, and then sits up painfully and sees Clarke, she thinks this was how it was meant to happen. Her daughter is tear stained, blood soaked and broken but she’s alive and Abby promised _him_ she’d look after her.

Then Bellamy let’s her go.

Abby tries to understand. He couldn’t have stopped her even if he’d tried. Abby now knows all too well about the stubbornness she’d passed on to her daughter but as he stands there telling her that Clarke had left she understands why he hadn’t really tried to stop her. Whether he knew it or not Bellamy Blake, whom she abhorred most, was in love with her daughter. It would have made her sick if he didn’t look like _such_ a kicked puppy.

He’s short again and walks away when he’s deemed that his job of informing her is done but she can’t find it in herself to blame him. She thought for a fleeting moment today that she would be reunited with Jake and as much as she loves Clarke, and being alive in general, she can’t deny the pang of loss she’d felt when she opened her eyes.

She’s not sure if Bellamy knows what he feels for Clarke but Abby is completely certain that he’s feeling that same loss regardless.

He hides it well over the coming weeks though. Almost instantly he picks himself up and squares his shoulders and a new and improved version of the criminal they sent down to earth rises from the ashes.

She’d almost be inclined to say that she liked him if she wasn’t so irritated by him mot of the time. He is given a seat on the council after the remaining 100 demand it; she’s loath to say some adults, mostly parents, join in recommending him too. Two days later she overhears a quiet speech, cloaked as a discussion, where he promises that things will change not because they want them to but because they have to, “Because the ground can’t be held to the laws of the sky.” He’s already making promises like a man of the people and she’s not sure if she’s terrified or proud. 

Her relationship with him continues to be strained at best, even though she regularly notices the bags under his eyes and the stiffness to his jaw. Despite it Bellamy looks after everything and everyone, including her, never asking for anything in return.

He sits on council meetings and brings up good points, objects when things get uncomfortable and generally does his best for everyone. He shares soft moments with anyone who needs them, especially those who were in the mountain, and Abby watches with interest at the way he becomes this different person while he’s comforting someone or distracting Monty from his guilt. And one night, when Abby is by the fire with some old medical files in her hands, trying to read by the dim light and she drops them, he’s there. Wordlessly collecting them, putting them in some semblance of the order they were in and handing them back to her 

He doesn’t wait for the smile that her lips curl into, or a thanks, it’s just one of the ways Bellamy is always there now. The parental presence she isn’t sure she represents anymore. 

Which is why it’s such an unexpected blow when it happens. 

It’s a day as normal as they have become in the aftermath of everything. It’s a routine hunting trip with a strong group of four, Bellamy on lead. They’re armed and they’re experienced and they’re expected back to camp long before nightfall.

They’ve only been out an hour when two of them come back panting for a stretcher. They reassure the med team not to worry, just a sprained ankle probably, broken as worst but Bellamy is with him and they’re going to bring him in together. Just like that they’re sent off, trusting Bellamy’s decision and ignoring the feeling in Abby’s gut that says they should have sent someone from medical.

In the end even if she’d have gone it couldn’t have been helped. 

It’s an uncomfortable hour before it happens. The gates open and it’s just such chaos. There are the two men who’d taken the stretcher but their faces are frightened and panicked. There’s another limping lamely behind them, apparently only keeping himself up by sheer force of will because as soon as he’s five feet inside the gates he collapses. And it’s then she sees who’s actually being carried in.

Bellamy, except before she even reaches him she somehow knows it’s not him. There’s blood everywhere and a hand hanging limply over the side of the stretcher and Abby is there in seconds, the mantra usually reserved for inside her own head is instead muttered under her breath. “Don’t die, don’t die, please don’t di-“

The words are cut off in her throat as she reaches him and his cold skin and those eyes of his, usually so powerful, now starring into nothingness. There’s more blood than she initially thought but it’s congealed around the wound, or _wounds_ she realizes, and the rest is dried in his skin and clothes, his whole torso stained red. They’re still holding him up with strained arms, begging for her to help, to fix it, but she thinks they already know too, she thinks they must have seen it happen.

Abby holds the calming hand of an experienced medical officer up to silence them effortlessly and she goes through the motions to confirm, absolutely. Not even a faint pulse, no heartbeat, completely unresponsive.

She licks her lips, which are suddenly so dry, but she finds it doesn’t help; her mouth is just as devoid of moisture. She can’t bring herself to say the words out loud but she looks up and finds Kane at her side, having appeared at some point, she nods at him tellingly. He’s about to tell the men holding Bellamy what to do when they hear the scream.

Abby could live a thousand lifetimes and she would never hear a more terrifying, bloodcurdling sound as that scream.

Octavia, how has she forgotten about his sister? They are, had been, the only siblings in space and she’d forgotten. The warrior who seems more like a small girl as she runs towards them before anything else can happen, throwing herself over her brother, and Abby is fairly sure she’s never seen love like it. No consideration for the blood or the horror she’s just there, arms wrapped around him, sobbing into his shoulder with her hair splayed across them both. Through the sobs Abby hears the occasional words, pleading with him to please wake up, please don’t leave her. It almost looks like he’s going to suddenly wrap a bloody arm around her and sit up and tell his sister that everything will be fine.

He doesn’t. It’s not fine. Abby suspects it won’t be again, at least not ever in the same way.

The burial was supposed to be short, the way he would have wanted it Miller had said. No fuss. But a majority of the camp had grown too attached and they all had wanted to pay their respects. Some people just tell a story about something Bellamy had done for them that he hadn’t realized meant the world, there are so many of these stories it makes Abby conscious of the fact that he really hadn’t been sleeping. The remaining of the 100 had more to say, sordid stories from before the Ark fell, moments when they changed their mind about Bellamy Blake. Some couldn’t say anything. Raven stood in the spot they’d all used to speak, opened her mouth and then promptly closed it again. She wasn’t seen by anyone except Wick for 3 days afterwards. 

Octavia hadn’t said anything. She’d watched from the boundaries of the forest with Lincoln by her side until well after it was over. Until dusk begun cloaking the sight of her and then when night eventually fell they were gone.

Abby learned the hardest lesson about the ground when Bellamy died. That no matter the walls around camp or the relative peace they were living in, it could all fall to pieces in seconds. She spent the evening thinking of Clarke, wondering but finally accepting that she may not see her again despite the desperate hope she’d been clinging to for months.

She cries herself to sleep that night.

When she’s in med bay four weeks later and there’s a commotion outside she doesn’t even turn away from her work until Jackson falls into the room panting for air. “It’s her, Abby. Clarke, it’s—“

He doesn’t get to say anything else because she’s running, sprinting, somewhere on the way Kane is behind her and she see’s the crowd but not the face yet. It’s not until she breaks through and wraps her arms around her daughter before she’s even really looking at her. Her chest opens as she inhales the smell of dirt and trees and steps back feeling the smile on her face. “Clarke you came back,” and for a second it’s wonderful, the warmth of the sun on her face and the fact that Clarke had hugged her back just as tightly. 

But Clarke’s eyes dart about and when she doesn’t find what she’s looking for she clears her throat, which effectively silences the people surrounding her. 

“Where’s Bellamy?”

It hadn’t lasted long, the moment of bliss before reality had set in. She can’t school her features like she wants to; she can’t hide the truth either. She shakes her head mournfully.

“Clarke…”

“No.” Abby almost raises an eyebrow at the force behind her answer.

“Clarke there was an accident.” She’s trying to be calm and fight the sadness so many of them have been struggling with because for Clarke this is new. She reaches out an arm to her shoulder praying more than anything that Clarke doesn’t shuck it off.

For a moment Abby thinks she hasn’t worked it out yet because nothing happens. Except, worryingly, a blank stare too much like Bellamy’s eyes when they’d brought him back. Then she collapses like a rag doll. She falls to her knees with rattled breaths and a shaking body and she clings to something. Wraps her hands around her left wrist until the skin under her fingers is strained white and probably going to bruise. 

Abby can’t hold in the gasp as all the pieces fit together. She’d assumed Bellamy loved Clarke but they’d never, Clarke had never mentioned that she might… Why would she? She trusted Bellamy, believed in him above everyone else. They had been in the middle of war, how much closer to an admission of love could she have asked her daughter for?

This is different though. Abby had now idea how deeply it ran. By the looks of it Clarke herself hadn’t truly known till now, but the words on her wrist can’t lie. Bellamy was her soul mate. 

Watching Clarke fall apart so completely is the third time that Abby feels the physical torment of a broken heart, because she finally has something in common with her 19-year-old daughter. 

They both have to wake up each day knowing that they’ve already heard the words written on their wrists.

 

 _ **\--Bellamy--**_  

It had been months since he first considered that he might be in love with Clarke spitfire Griffin. It hadn’t taken much longer after that to decide that he _definitely_ was in love with her.

He was fine with it really. He was actually really suited to the whole unrequited love thing as it turned out. He protected her, listened to her, and watched the way she looked while she was sleeping. All totally normal non-creepy love type shit.

Even as she told him that ‘it,’ or better yet ‘he,’ was worth the risk, even then when fear was eating at him, he knew without a doubt that he would die for her. And it _was_ worth the risk because the world needed Clarke Griffin and Bellamy could stand to be a sacrifice for that cause.

The mountain was the hardest thing he’s ever done although his people will later tell him he was their beacon of hope with how easily he seemed to work undetected in the belly of the beast. The less they know about how he got in there the better. What they don’t understand was his beacon of hope had been that radio connection, hearing her voice for the first time and the way she said his name, like she had been relieved that he was alive. Everyone has hope in one form or another and even when she’s scolding him about not checking in on time she was always his. 

He truly didn’t expect it to end the way it did; he’d hoped it wouldn’t more than anything. He’d done his job, infiltrated the mountain, hidden his people and taken down the acid fog, which should have been enough. He should have been able to save them alone. Then Clarke comes in and their armies disappear and they have to resort to the thing neither of them had wanted.

They pull the lever with his hand on hers while he tells her with everything he has that they are doing this together. He’s stupid enough to believe the nod of her head as she agrees, or maybe he’s just blinded by the fact that he’s so utterly devoted to her.

The mountain falls as it was always going to with Clarke as its enemy. It may not be how they wanted it but their people are safe and underlying everything else he can feel the shared relief as they all stumble back into the light of day. 

At the gate he knows before he gets to her, quips that they deserve a drink because once upon a time that was almost their thing and he wants to speak first. Maybe if he’s lucky he can stop whatever she’s intending on saying. He tells her she’s forgiven, that the burden is both of theirs to carry; short of telling her he loves her, because he’s not that selfish, he begs her to stay. ‘Please come inside’ translates to ‘please don’t leave _me._ ’ 

Then there’s a kiss on his cheek and he hates himself for the flutter in his chest. He reins it in so that she doesn’t feel his heart thumping against his chest and instead he focuses on wrapping his arms around her tight enough that she might feel just how much he needs her to stay. It doesn’t work, she’s Clarke and she has this idea in her head that she doesn’t deserve to be with her people. Besides it being bullshit she doesn’t notice that she’s also breaking his heart in the process. Not that she ever realized she had his heart in the first place.

Just the thought that he’s about to lose her is what makes his eyes glassy. Her body starts gently pulling back and it takes everything in him not to cling, not to smother her in his arms so she can’t leave, not without him anyway. But she needs this and he signed up to giving her what she needed a long time ago. 

“May we meet again.”

He nods in the hopes that she means it literally, as a promise, rather than as the farewell that it’s used as. He breathes slowly out of his nose, a feat he only manages by looking to the horizon instead of her as she walks away. Air in, air out until he finally manages to repeat it back, “May we meet again.”

He doesn’t mean to count the steps she takes away from him but he can’t stop. Clarke is six strides away when something makes it hard for him to swallow. She’s ten steps gone when he comes to the conclusion that no matter how much he stares she’s not going to look back at him. At fourteen he finally turns back to the camp and his eyes trail over all the people he needs to look after now, because she won’t let him look after her. 

Even from her stretcher Abby looks at him like his entire existence revolves around making her life a misery that is until he finally reaches her and she gets a good look at him. He doesn’t know if his forehead says, ‘this loser is in love with Clarke Griffin’ or not but whatever the reason she bites back the special brand of hate she normally reserves especially for him. He explains there was nothing he could do, she knows how stubborn Clarke can be better than anyone and he finishes with an attempt at sarcasm, “you’re more than welcome to go after her yourself.”

She’s not, even if she could get up and chase her daughter down. No one is welcome to go looking for Clarke. If all he can do to protect her is make sure that she gets the space she needs then that’s what he’ll do at all costs.

Abby falls back against the stretcher like all of the wind has been taken out of her. He’s never seen her so vulnerable before, not even on that table with a drill in her side, but he honestly couldn’t give less of a shit. He’s done his duty for today, hell he might have done his duty for life and all he’s asking for is some time. He doesn’t think it’s too much to ask.

He can’t even remember if he nodded that he was leaving before he stomped away. He doesn’t get far before he remembers that he doesn’t have a home here. So much time spent looking for survivors or travelling with the grounders, and then eventually stuck inside the hollow mountain, he never made a home in Camp Jaha. No real tent to call his own, the small number of possessions he had burnt at the dropship, along with the version of himself that wasn’t quite as good as he was now. Anytime he’d spent here was either sitting in lockup with Murphy, who he hated to admit he was actually starting to miss, or he was so busy with trying to save everyone he never needed somewhere to go at night.

Sleep had been a precious commodity since, ever, and between the nightmares hiding behind his eyelids and watching her walk away he has a feeling he wasn’t going to start getting some anytime soon. So he doesn’t make the effort to find a bed for the night, he’d let the others fight over them for now. All he wanted to do was sit and stare into the oblivion and see how long he could do it for.

Thankfully people seem to recognize that he needs his space. As night falls and people tip toe around the camp as if they’re not sure what they should be doing he’s thankfully left to his own devices, which basically means they all allow him to sit with a scowl permanently strapped across his face while he thinks about all the things he’s done to deserve the ever expanding black hole in his chest.

That is until Octavia decides that apparently he’s moped enough. 

“You can’t sit like that forever, people are starting to think there’s something wrong with you.”

He wants to sigh in that fond brotherly way that he usually does with her. Make a joke and ruffle her hair, or pat her braids as the case may now be. But he can’t. He looks at his baby sister, the badass warrior who he still nearly lost inside the mountain and he just doesn’t have it in him.

“Maybe there is something wrong.” 

It’s maybe a minute before she asks, “Clarke?” Despite herself he sees her jaw tightens in frustration and she looks away so he can’t tell just how angry she is. 

“O, she fucking saved us, she saved _you_. And I don’t want to hear about anything else in between ok. I just don’t.”

He doesn’t know if it’s actually his words she listens to or the desperate, pleading way he says it but she softens and he sees the Octavia he came down on the dropship with. Apparently she can’t begin to agree with the Clarke topic but she at least doesn’t mention her again, in fact all she says before she resigns herself and walks away is, “Don’t forget big brother, you saved us too.”

He doesn’t forget.

He thinks about her words for hours after she’s left until the fires come and go, burning out weakly in the same way his body feels exhausted. Eventually he tumbles his way to the floor so that the oblivion he’s staring into is the sky. He thinks about the Ark when it was still a floating prison and it doesn’t seem that far, close enough to reach out and touch if he wanted to, maybe start again and do things better. 

He doesn’t know how it happens but eventually his eyes close and he falls into a restless sleep, thankfully not deep enough to dream but instead he fidgets and squirms until the sound of his own leg hitting the ground wakes him up. It can’t be much later, an hour at most, but he’d closed his eyes so late into the night that the sky is already that particular shade of grey it becomes just before sunrise. Just enough light for Bellamy to notice what’s written on the wrist hanging limply across his own face.

He’s pretty sure time slows down enough for him to feel every nanosecond. The same heavy feeling settles in his throat as when he had watched her walk away and it suddenly makes a world of sense. 

He knew what his words were of course, even though they were usually ignored and covered in dirt or blood like the rest of him. He’d never been a big believer in the idea of soul mates. Especially not growing up with Octavia who had words in some language he’d never seen. How would his sister, who lived under his floor, ever meet her soul mate let alone one who spoke an unknown language? Of course now he knew that language was Trigeadasleng and now he knew her soul mate was Lincoln.

And as of this moment he knew _his_ soul mate was Clarke Griffin. Maybe having the right soul mate can make a believer out of anyone. 

It’s not as if he’d gone out of his way to find out what her wrist said but he’d just happened upon the information at some point and stored it away in his head like anyone so pathetic for Clarke might do. But never had he put the two together, the same identical four words on the curve of their wrists, and he definitely hadn’t thought about it at the gate…

He sits up almost violently when he gets there; he would never see Clarke again. That had been the fear when she left, that something would happen to her and he’d never know, but this might be worse. Bellamy suddenly knew without a shadow of a doubt that she wasn’t coming back to him, because there’s no scenario where she comes back and he’s not the first one waiting for her, speaking a mile a minute into her hair as he holds her. And none of those words would match their wrists, which means when he turned around and let her walk away it was irrevocably goodbye forever.

He’d vomit if he had food in his stomach. He’d cry if he had any tears left to spare. He’d grab a rifle and go looking for her if he wasn’t so completely in love with her that he wouldn’t dare take away what she needed. Even if what she needed was going to take her away from him. 

It takes a few hours, people start waking up and making a show of breakfast with their children and friends, but he finally comes to the conclusion that he can’t tell anyone. If he tells anyone that him being Clarke’s soul mate, and their last conversation, has sent her off to her near certain demise there’d be search parties until they found her. Abby wouldn’t rest until her daughter was safe and sound, and Clarke wouldn’t rest for having been dragged back before she’s healed.

She also wouldn’t be his soul mate, and that thought terrifies him as much as losing her does.

So instead of telling anyone Bellamy swallows the darkness that he could so easily succumb to like he has swallowed everything else. Over the weeks and months he does exactly what Clarke asked of him, and exactly what Octavia reminds him he can do. He saves his people.

The council is archaic. It’s old rules and old procedures and if this wasn’t the system of government they were currently relying on to survive he might be excited because he’s _pretty_ sure they stole half the traditions and procedures from the Greeks, or possibly the Romans. It is unfortunately what they’re using to govern though so he has to change it from the inside, he has to fight them on all of the old shit and make sure that things are fair and good.

Rome wasn’t built in a day but he’s pretty pleased with the progress he makes inch by inch.

He spends his nights either on patrol or, when he’s not on the rotation, with the rest of the 100. Sometimes they gather around and drink moonshine and don’t really talk about what happened to them all. A lot of times he sits with them in small groups or one on one and then they do actually talk because it’s finally safe enough to. One exceptionally warm evening they have a bonfire and all of them finally have enough other clothes to burn the ones from Mt Weather, the clothes that are tainted with blood stains and horrifying memories.

Jasper doesn’t join the unofficial group activities for two months and when he finally does it’s only after Bellamy overhears him talking to Monty. Except it’s less talking and more Jasper blaming Monty personally for everything including Maya. Bellamy drags him away with a fist curled into the neck of his shirt like he weighs nothing, ignoring Monty in the background telling him he’s “fine, really.”

He drags him out of sight and forces him against the wall of the Ark, his fist is probably pressing too hard into his throat but Jasper isn’t dead yet so he can still fucking listen.

“We’ve all lost people Jasper. Every fucking one of us, you think you’re the only one? Go fuck yourself.” It’s a growl, threatening and low. “But if I hear you so much as breathe another word to Monty about this I will end you. That’s a promise. Like it or not he saved you, and me, and every single one of our people that walked out of that mountain alive. _You_ couldn’t have killed Cage because you’re weak, which is the same fucking reason you can’t fight back now so listen good because I’m only saying this once.” His fist in Jasper’s shirt loosens only to spread around his throat easily, pinning him closer to the wall. “Back. The. Fuck. Off." 

Hands appear at his arms after that pulling him away and he let’s them, and he hears Millers, “shit” while Jasper gasps for air like he’s never tasted it before.

“Remember what I said”, is his last reminder before he walks away, ignoring Miller and whomever else he brought with him. 

Jasper slowly integrates after that, he doesn’t sit with Monty or anything but he doesn’t torture him either so Bellamy is taking that as another win.

He has to take all the wins he can because he’s not sure how to handle another loss, not when he knows he has the biggest loss of all coming. And it’s not like any of his successes fill the void he’s hiding behind his tired eyes anyway.

One uneventful month later and he’s getting ready for a hunting trip.

He’d mentioned to Miller he’d needed to stretch his legs at some point and without warning Miller tells him that he’s going hunting the next day, it’s all been worked out. Sure enough when he arrives at the gate there’s Miller flanked by three of the guys from the regular hunting groups. He says he’s on guard duty but that these three idiots were great and the whole thing should be quick and easy enough. Just like that Bellamy has a rifle over his shoulder and an axe, he has no clue where Miller got it, in his back pocket and there’s an airy sense of freedom as he steps outside of the gates.

The guys, Norman, Reed and Hal, suggest they head to a hunting area they’ve been frequenting the last few weeks. Due north for 45 minutes, he agrees hastily and his feet start carrying him north without needing to be told where to go. He’s been telling hunting parties since she left, to be careful. He’s pretty sure they all know it means to watch out for blonde hair among the trees, but it’s the first time in a while he’s had to personally worry about it. He excused himself from hunting trips months ago under the guise of being too busy between council work and guard patrol but the reality was he hadn’t been able to handle it. He’d go as far as to say he’d been a liability as he watched for her more than the animals he was trying to kill.

The time off, he assumed, had done him good. Given him time to clear his head of distractions. He’d managed to focus even working with Abby every day and he’s now capable of not imagining Clarke walking out of the woods _every_ time he’s on night watch.

It’s almost as if he’s functioning like a normal person who’s not trying to kick an obsession out of his system, and failing miserably.

They talk easily as they trek through the forest, plans for the camp over summer, what they think the first winter where they aren’t at war will be like. Bellamy scoffs and tells them not to count on peace by winter but it’s mostly all in good fun. Light conversation with no real substance, which allows him to settle comfortably with keeping one eye on the forest around them.

They’re about 25 minutes out when Hal shouts out, “Fuck!”

Bellamy spins with his rifle ready to shoot at something, anything, and he’s already breathing heavily in anticipation. After a minute he lowers it with a shake of his head when he sees Hal’s foot trapped between two rocks.

“Fucking hell,” he huffs out failing to hide the trace of annoyance but he still approaches him carefully. Bellamy is patient as he pulls apart the rocks enough for the other two to pull him out but it becomes fairly obvious, very quickly, that Hal isn’t going to be walking anywhere anytime soon.

Bellamy doesn’t want to label him a baby, because his ankle is bent at a pretty unnatural angle, but he’s still not sure there’s any need to let out the whines he does when he tries to put the smallest amount of weight on it.

“Ok. Fine. Reed, you and Norman go back and get a stretcher. I’ll wait with him and we’ll just have to take him back to the med bay, maybe come back out tomorrow without his sorry ass.”

The joke lightens the mood, a collective sigh of relief and a small laugh. It’s fine, they have a plan and they don’t _need_ to hunt today.  

He drags Hal over to some low rocks while the other two scuttle off and he calls after them, “Pick up the pace guys!”

It’s awkward for a minute until Hal looks up at him all bundles of nervous energy and asks, “So what do you think my chances with Harper are?”

They’ve been shooting the shit for maybe half an hour, which means the guys should be on their way back with the stretcher, when they both hear it. An unmistakable growl comes from a distance and it’s when they hear it again they realize it’s coming closer. 

Bellamy pushes Hal down and makes a motion with his hand for him to stay there and stay quiet. There’s no tree cover in the small clearing but he has the advantage of the river behind them which means whatever it is doesn’t have 360-degree access to them. Although he’s fucked if this thing comes at them right now because there’s maybe 10 feet between the trees and this kid who can’t walk. Another growl and he puts himself in the middle of those 10 feet. Maybe he can fire a few shots and scare it away for good, hell maybe he can do what he came to do and hunt the damn thing.

He’s done this a thousand times, gun trained ahead, sweeping all the vantage points, listening out for any sounds. He’s got this, he was hunting for survival, not surplus, while these kids were still on the relative safety of the Ark. He keeps his ear trained for any noise as he finally enters the trees with quiet, sure-footed steps. The silence is worrying until he hears a rustle ahead. He fires a shot into the bush for good measure, scare the thing out and maybe get this over and done with.

What he doesn’t expect is the jaguar to come at him from the tree to his right. The initial blow of this thing pouncing at him knocks him sideways, his gun still tight in his grip but no use to anybody pointed aimlessly up in the air while he stumbles. It seems to need to recover from the blow too because it rolls over before it starts to prowl towards him. 

“Fuck.”

He’s not got enough space to get a decent head start on the thing so he takes off making sure to dart between trees in a vague attempt to throw the it off. It works for a minute or two, and gets Bellamy a small lead, before it clocks on to his plan and starts gaining on him. If he turns to shoot and misses he’s a dead man and if he carries on running he is definitely a dead man so he gives himself all of 30 seconds to think of something.  

It’s almost instinctual when he stops and curls himself into a ball on the ground at the last second. The thing only takes the bait, jumping over him and slamming into the tree he was about to dodge. If he couldn’t taste his heartbeat he might breathe a sigh of relief but he’s not stupid enough to think it’s over. He jumps up and uses the animal’s rebound time to backtrack.

He’s almost back to where this started when he realizes it’s not following him anymore. The gun goes back up, pointed higher than before and he swivels looking for any sign of the jaguar, that’s when he hears Hal calling for him.

It can’t be more than 20 seconds before he gets back to Hal who is dragging himself backwards with his hands. It looks fucking painful with what he’s now sure is a broken ankle but the fear on the kids face tells Bellamy what he’s going to see when he turns back around. 10 feet. Just 10 feet between the jaguar stalking towards them and the river, 10 feet to the trees too, it’s almost poetic.

He doesn’t think when he shoots just aims and fires and _shit_ , it jumps at the right moment so his bullet only grazes it’s side, which slows it down for all of half a second before it’s on him. It’s claws at his chest, the weight of it knocking him backwards and teeth sinking into his shoulder. This thing’s entire fucking mouth is wrapped around his shoulder like he’s a piece of jerky and it’s going to rip the whole piece off. He only registers his own screams once his body adjusts to the blinding pain, white hot, piercing and accompanied by warm, wetness flowing freely over his chest.

Hal fires and it disengages its jaw from him long enough for Bellamy to reach behind him and scramble for his new axe with his now one good arm.

It’s a pretty good shot and goes straight into the things chest but it keeps coming, slower sure, but still coming like some mutant, indestructible jaguar machine, except now it’s going for Hal.

Bellamy may be covered with his own blood, in more pain than he ever thought possible and trailing an arm he can’t move behind him but he’ll be fucking dammed if he’s going to let this kid die like this.

Luckily his legs still work and he surprises himself with his own speed as he hauls himself up and launches at this thing’s back, plunging the axe in as far as it will go. It buckles under him, his weight is too much and it’s injuries too many and they fall to the ground together just two feet away from Hal who is still trying to reload his gun in all the commotion.

Yeah, great fucking hunter.

He’s on his back with this thing next to him, lying on its side as it dies with a low rumble. It’s then that he realizes he can’t control his own breathing; it’s labored and impossible to catch like he’s in the middle of running. And the pain in his upper body is impossible; his shoulder might be hanging on by a thread and it stings like hell itself as blood pours from it liberally. He swings his good hand over to it to try and apply pressure, like Clarke taught him, but he’s too weak to leverage himself enough. It’s then he realizes his chest is scratched with claw marks too, some of which he swears he can feel from the inside. Too deep and too many and he’s not surprised when Hal drags himself over to look at him and there’s horror on his face as he mutters, “Shit.”

It gets hazy from there. Hal decides to move his hand away and apply pressure to the wounds on his shoulder but having Hal’s entire body weight on his already wrecked shoulder only makes Bellamy see stars, and not like those on the Ark. He only vaguely hears the kid shouting for Norman and Reed and it’s even fuzzier when they finally make it back, choking on their shock and horror and asking about what happened. Bellamy doesn’t hear it all, he knows what happened so he doesn’t consider listening to be a necessity over breathing and they’re so quiet now anyway, like they’re talking to him from the other end of an impossibly long cave. Just one thing makes it through as clear as crystal.

“We’ve got to get him back to Doctor Griffin.”

For obvious reasons Clarke is on his mind then. His beautiful Clarke with her hair like sunshine and eyes as blue as streams, the perfect marriage of the sky and the ground. What he wouldn’t give to see her right now, to have her saving his life instead of the idiots clumsily loading him on to a stretcher. Although Bellamy will hand it to them as they lift him up, he catches a glance at the ground beneath him, soaking up the deep crimson as if it’s been waiting for it, waiting for this to happen. It can’t have been easy to move him with that much blood, or the curses that come out of his mouth anytime they touch him.

He would never have sworn at her. He’d have been coughing up his own blood from a punctured lung and still smiled at her crookedly. She only deserved smiles.

He doesn’t even really register the pain anymore unless they trip or jostle him. It’s almost numb everywhere his body is leaking blood and he doesn’t know if it’s because thinking of her is calming or simply because his body has moved past the point of physically feeling anymore.

That’s when he realizes that he’s about to die.

He thought he’d be more upset if he were honest. He’s fought for so long against this, worked so hard to stop it happening that the easy acceptance is chilling. He’s not scared anymore. He’s not that scared boy that landed on earth and tried to leave the Ark in the sky to burnout like a star. It might be the first time in his life that he isn’t scared of something. The more blood he loses the easier it is to accept his fate.

Octavia will miss him but she’ll survive. She always does. He’s watched his tiny sister, the girl who broke his heart every time he put her under the floor, become a warrior in every sense of the word. She belongs on the ground, freedom in every breath, the sky no longer able to trap her and the grass under her feet always. And Lincoln will protect her now, if she ever needs it. Octavia will be safe and happy and loved, that is all he ever wanted for his baby sister.

The rest of the 100 will carry on; he will ultimately become another check on the list of the dead. Bellamy Blake. Check. He’s not irreplaceable, nobody is and nobody can afford to be down here.

Besides they’ll have Clarke. 

He actually thinks he manages a smile at the thought, at least it feels like a smile. Maybe it was his ego or his tunnel vision assumptions that he was somehow safer than her but when Bellamy realized that she was his ‘one’ he’d assumed that something would happen to her out there on her own and it had killed him. Not only that something would happen to her but that she’d be alone while it happened. A world without Clarke Griffin is not a world he wanted to live in and now he wouldn’t have to. Bellamy finally gets to live up to all his silent promises and he gets to be the sacrifice so that Clarke can live on.

She can come back and lead now, and do a better job than he ever could. She’ll fight harder, shout louder and _just know_ what is right and wrong for their people.

He would have loved to see it. Clarke Griffin finally taking her place as leader of the sky people. He can settle for being the reason it happens though.

He’s weaker now and he knows it. It’s hard to blink, hard to concentrate enough to wiggle a toe or even part his lips just enough to breathe. He’d wonder when he stopped listening to the world around him if he thought he had time to wonder.

It doesn’t end with a bang like he expects, or pain that is just too much as he dies. It’s a whisper. It’s staring up at the blue above him and seeing her eyes and letting the fight go peacefully. His last inhale and he sees her in his mind as beautiful as the day they landed together, his last exhale and he thinks of those last words they shared. 

The last beat of his heart and as silently as that Bellamy Blake is gone.

 

_**\--Clarke--** _

If she hadn’t said it, he wouldn’t have said it back. Maybe she’d of come back and he’d have been there, home, waiting with open arms and that charming smile of his. And they’d finally do it, without threat of war or massacre; they’d slowly admit their feelings for each other before simply existing together for all of their days. 

They would have been happy. That impossibly blissful, delirious happy that she’d only read about in books and dreamed about as a child.

They’d have been her favorite fairy tale with their insurmountable odds and matching wrists. The prince and the princess.

But Clarke had said it. She’d let the words slip out and never even thought of what might happen. So consumed with nightmares that now paled in comparison to the hundreds of different ways she’d imagined he died.

She only heard snippets from her various visitors putting it all together in her head. Her mother told her about Octavia leaving on the day of Bellamy’s memorial. Clarke nodded sharply signifying that she didn’t want to hear anymore, two things she had missed, that day and that girl. A connection to Bellamy she would never get back.

Monty comes to see her with a jacket she recognizes immediately, green trim, patchwork shoulders and frayed edges that just scream bad boy Bellamy Blake. Clarke slips it on without thinking, despite the heat, hugging Monty with loose arms and Bellamy’s warmth spreading all over. Monty stayed a while and told her stories of what Bellamy had done while she’d been gone, his fights with the council and his promises of equality and most importantly the time he spent with the survivors of the mountain. It’s a week later when Miller explains what happened with Jasper and Clarke somehow loves Bellamy more. 

She was filled with equal parts pride and guilt because she felt like she had taken that away from them and she wasn’t sure if she could fill the hole he left behind.

She’d been back two weeks when she finds Hal. His ankle had been broken but now he was only a few days away from having the makeshift cast her mother fashioned taken off.

Hal asks her how much detail she wants him to go into and Clarke being Clarke asks for everything. As she listens she half regrets it but later she’ll be glad for knowing. Glad for knowing how he’d saved Hal’s life because he was a stupid, idiotic hero even he never accepted it. She’s glad she knows how peaceful he looked in the end and how there had been the faintest hint of a smile on his face. Clarke likes to imagine he was thinking of her like she thinks of him everyday.

Eventually she takes over Bellamy’s council seat though she insists on keeping the sign they’d made for him saying ‘Councilor Blake.’ because it was his seat, he had earned it, she was just keeping it warm.

Clarke visits his grave every week and apologizes for not coming more often but tells him he left so much work behind she can’t catch up. She hopes he appreciates the joke. One week she ends up having a one sided argument with him about if that reincarnation bullshit is real and if it is why hasn’t he found her again yet, but her voice is quiet and serious when she says, “because we wasted so much time the first go around.” She tells him she loves him every time she leaves. Because they never said that out loud but he’d always told her with his actions. She has a to lot to make up for.

She hopes she’s caught up by the time they meet again. 


End file.
